


The Heart is a Winged Thing

by ScrollingKingfisher



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Wings, Amputation, Canonical Character Death, Hurt/Comfort, It Gets Better, Just a hint of, Polynein (Critical Role), Whump, Wingfic, but it's open to interpretation, canon adjacent, flock bonding
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-21
Updated: 2021-03-17
Packaged: 2021-03-18 16:49:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,315
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29612445
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScrollingKingfisher/pseuds/ScrollingKingfisher
Summary: Most people in the world have wings.Caleb does not.
Comments: 14
Kudos: 132





	1. Chapter 1

_He had had wings, once._

  
  


“I won’t tell anyone!” Nott swears to him, her voice shrill as he tugs his shirt hurriedly over his thin back. “I promise!”

Caleb had thought she’d been in town. He’d thought she was gone when he had stripped himself of his clothes to bathe in the river, when she’d seen-

Nott’s luminous yellow eyes keep flickering to his back like she can’t help herself. Her own wings, short and rounded and speckled innocuous chestnut brown against the green of her skin, shuffle in discomfort. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know. Caleb, I...”

She runs out of words. Caleb doesn’t blame her. What she had seen… anyone would be disgusted. She _should_ be disgusted by him. 

“It’s fine,” he forces himself to say, wrapping himself in the safety of his coat. “If we could pretend that didn’t happen?”

Her long ears perk up. “Yeah. Of course. I didn’t see nothing!”

She stops asking him to help her preen the difficult feathers at the top of her back after that. He isn’t brave enough to tell her that he misses it. 

**...**

He has not even known them all a week when they insist on taking him to the Zadash public baths. He does not quite know how they talked him into it- some combination of cajoling him and ignoring his protests- but somehow he finds himself hovering by the benches, still half-clothed, as the rest of the patrons quickly scatter away from them with disapproving glares.

“Cay-leeeeb! Why are you still wearing clothes? I thought you wanted a bath!”

Jester props her arms on the edge of the pool and Caleb quickly averts his gaze from her very naked chest. Mollymauk saunters past him, also entirely naked and entirely shameless about it, plumage flashing in glossy greens and purples as he sashays towards the tub. 

“I did not.” Caleb reminds her tightly. “The baths were your idea.” The long-unused muscles in his back clench. He has no desire to bare himself to anyone. But the weeks of road grime have been building up, and the thought of being clean again is appealing, even if only for a few minutes...

“He’s afraid of water too!” Nott shouts from the opposite end of the pool where she’s sat on the side, one toe dipped distastefully in. Unfortunately, none of the others seem to buy it.

“Oh come on, Caleb!” Beau hollers. “No one cares if you’re wingless, man! Yasha hasn’t got any either and we’re not bothering her about it. No offense, Yasha,” she glances up at her.

Yasha just shrugs her broad shoulders, spreading her arms over the edge of the pool. Beau visibly blushes before shaking herself out of it and turning back to Caleb. “We paid for this, there isn’t even anyone else here now, so get in the water!” 

She illustrates her point by leaning forwards and dipping her wings briefly into the bath before fluffing out her feathers and flapping vigorously to work the water through her chestnut plumage. Jester shrieks in delight as she’s splashed. Nott shrieks too, not nearly as pleased, then starts cussing Beau out, posturing and yelling with her stubby wings held high. Fjord rolls his eyes. Mollymauk cackles and takes a running jump, tucking his legs and folding his winds at the last second in a magnificent cannonball that sends a wave over the lip of the pool and halfway across the tiled floor.

In the chaos and complaining that follows, Caleb manages to slip out of his clothes and into the water without anyone so much as glancing his way. 

The others eventually calm down. Jester and Molly chat as they preen each other, plucking out bent or damaged feathers and smoothing the rest down. Yasha and Fjord sit together in awkward silence. Beau is scowling, trying to pick out some muck crusted into the downy axillary feathers on the underside, her limbs arranged awkwardly with one long, pointed wing crooked up to reach it, occasionally throwing her opinion into Jester and Molly’s conversation. Nott is still sulking on the edge.

Caleb watches them all. Slowly, almost against his will, his muscles begin to relax. It’s so warm. He closes his eyes, letting the warm water creep up under his chin, the chatter of the others washing over him. For the first time since he stepped into the Academy, for the first time in a very long time, he feels almost safe. He might not fully trust these people yet, but he trusts that they will not put a knife in his ribs at the first opportunity, and that is more than he has had for years. The ache in his back eases just a little.

He nearly falls into a doze. A sharp knock on the door startles him and he flails a little in the water. 

“Your time’s nearly up, five more minutes!” the attendant shouts, their voice muffled through the wood.

Jester visibly pouts. Fjord sighs and turns to hoist himself out, reaching for a towel as the water runs off his wings like oiled beads. “Come on. Better get out before we’re thrown out.” 

Jester groans dramatically, but pulls herself out as well, flapping her wings vigorously to dry them and sending droplets flying. Caleb averts his eyes again. The rest follow her, bickering and laughing as they go. 

Caleb is the last out. He steps out of the bath with some regret, his wet feet slapping against the tiles, but the warm water has done its job. It is so nice to be clean for once, even if he knows it can’t last. Without thinking, turns his back on the rest of them as he reaches for a towel. 

He hears a quiet gasp behind him. He whips his head around. 

Jester is frozen, staring at him with widened, horrified eyes. The others have stopped talking as well, all gawking at him. 

_Sloppy. Useless._ Cold shame rushes through him, and he wraps a towel shakily around his shoulders, unable to meet their eyes. He knows what they’ve seen. Not the blank stretch of skin of a true Wingless, not the deep black stains of a fallen Aasimar- he didn’t lose his wings to anything as pure as divine judgement. No, what he had was far worse. A true horror. A mutilation. 

A terrible cloying silence fills the room. He feels his back muscles clench involuntarily, trying to wrap himself in wings which no longer exist, only to wince as the scar tissue pulls tight across his shoulders.

“Dude. What the hell happened to your- ow!” Beau yelps as Fjord punches her arm. 

“Who wants pastries?” Jester asks, too loud, overly cheerful. “Come on, Molly, I want cinnamon! Oooh do you think they’ll have bear claws?”

Slowly, the others start to move. Caleb gets dressed as fast as he can, tugging his coat over his back, but he can still feel the weight of their eyes on him. He doesn’t blame them. He’s just pathetically grateful when they don’t ask.

**...**

The Labenda Swamp is awful. 

The others might be able to fly over it, but even they have to land sometime- the cart has all their provisions, so they’re stuck travelling at Caleb and Kiri’s pace. The mud works its way into their boots and hair and under their nails and clots in the soft, downy feathers where it’s hard to reach. And it _stinks_. By the time they have found the safehouse and eliminated the troll, they all reek of swamp, and it’s enough to turn even Caleb’s nose as they all trudge back to town.

Needless to say, they’re all pleased to leave. 

A few more days of travel and they’re out under a blissfully open sky again, mountains starting to loom high in front of them, relishing the sun after the overcast humidity of the swamp. The cart rocks gently under him as Caleb holds the reins. He can hear Molly and Beau’s yelled bickering loud and clear as they swoop over him, chasing after each other, wings flashing as they twist and turn through the air- something about Hupperdook being full of rave gnomes?

Caleb leans back with a quiet sigh. The sun is high above, warming his hair and the wooden boards of the cart and the side of his face, and he closes his eyes to luxuriate in it for just a second. The shadow of Fjord, catching thermals high above, passes over him briefly before slipping off again. 

Travelling feels… better than he had expected. No skulking in the shadows, other people to watch his back, travelling _to_ somewhere instead of simply running _from_. And none of his travelling companions have even mentioned his wings to him, even if he catches them glancing at his back occasionally.

Molly and Beau swoop overhead again, low enough that the breeze ruffles his hair, Molly cackling as he zips past. A second later there’s an indignant yelp as he gets knocked out of the air by a well aimed wing smack, rolling head-over-heels in the dirt before getting to his feet and shaking himself off, making a rude gesture at the sky.

Beauregard crows in victory above him, too distracted to see the blur of feathers coming up behind her, then squawks as Jester pummels her into the ground as well with an enthusiastic shriek. 

“I am not slowing the cart so you can fight,” Caleb yells to them as Jester and Beau start wrestling in the dirt.

“I should think not!” Mollymauk catches up with him in a few beats of his wings, alighting on the back of the cart next to Kiri and starting to sulkily brush the dust off his feathers. “Leave ‘em here, they deserve it. It’s gonna take me hours to wash this out. Look, Beau nearly bent a primary!” He huffs and opens a wing to demonstrate, the light turning the feathers into an oil-slick rainbow.

“How terrible,” Caleb tells him dryly.

Mollymauk settles down with a few more grumbles, content to preen his wings back into immaculacy as they slowly rumble towards the mountain.  
  
Caleb spots Hupperdook before they get there- perched precipitously on the rocky slopes, chimneys belching smoke, the clang of machinery growing louder and louder as they approach the base. The others land beside the cart as he brings it to a stop by what appears to be some kind of lift leading to the town proper. The cliffs in front of them seem to loom.

Fjord steps forwards to liaise with the lift operatives. After a few minutes he turns back to the group. 

“Apparently, the lift’s not due to run for the next hour. Something about a snapped cable.”

Jester groans. “But it’ll be so late by then! All the shops will be closed and it’ll be all dark!”

Beau stares up at the cliff. “We could just take everything valuable and fly up. Ask them to send the cart on to the stables. Looks like other people are doing it.” She nods towards the queue of abandoned carts which have been pulled off the road. 

“Well we can’t just leave Caleb down here on his own!” Jester pouts, “And what about Kiri?”

The thought of everyone sitting in the cart with him, getting progressively more irritated and snappish with each other, pressed Caleb into speaking up. “Nein, I don’t mind. You go on ahead.”

“But then you’d miss out!” Jester turns her wide eyes on him. “Caleb, what if there’s a bookshop up there? Oh I know! Why don’t we just fly you up as well? I’m strong, I can carry you!”

Hmm. On the one hand, being grabbed and hoisted into the air sounded horrible. On the other, a bookshop…

Nott’s eyes dart to him. “I’m not sure that’s such a good idea, hey I could wait down here with you!” But Jester is still looking at him.

“I… hmm.” 

He wavers a second too long, and Jester must take that as permission, because she beams at him, broad wings already unfolding behind her, and deceptively strong arms grab him around the waist. “I knew you’d agree! Come on!”

“Jester, I don’t know- a!”

One strong jump, a pump of wings, and they’re airborn. Caleb’s stomach lurches, body automatically angling to reduce drag, long forgotten instincts kicking in to _flap flap you’ve got to flap_ as he tries fruitlessly to control their trajectory. Jester’s wings beat with quick heavy thumps on either side as she lifts him higher, each thrust propelling them upwards, and they’re so high off the ground- Caleb feels that wild adrenaline thrill through his body as he sees the planes they’d traversed spread out below him. Gods, he’d thought he’d never be up this high again! He lets out an exhilarated little half laugh, half sob as Jester spreads her wings wide to try and catch the updraught rising from the cliff. She laughs as well as she manages to catch it, letting out a little shriek as it propels them both up past the ledge above, before she turns on the wind and letting them glide to a less-than-coordinated landing on the clifftop. 

“Oh my gosh Caleb, that was SO COOL! Have you flown tandem before? You didn’t even wriggle or anything!”

Caleb takes a moment, hands on his knees as he catches his breath. He wipes away the tears on his cheeks surreptitiously. “No, I haven't, that was… that was the first time.”  
  
Nott rises over the cliff edge in a blur of stubby wings. “Caleb! Caleb are you alright? Are you hurt?”  
  
“No, I am... I am fine. I am good. Thank you,” he says to Jester, trying to put all of his gratitude into it, and she beams at him as the rest of the group rise over the cliff one by one, wings gilded by the setting sun.

“No problem!”

**...**

Later, he'll help them win a drinking contest, and then he'll dance until he's dizzy and the lights are leaving streaks across his vision. He'll watch and laugh as Mollymauk spins a gleefully shrieking Nott around the dancefloor, both of them smacking into people with their uncoordinated, drunken wings. The woman in his arms will blur, and just for a moment he'll be young again, back in a seedy Rexxentrem dance hall with Astrid. And although the warmth in his heart will have faded a little by the next morning, and the weight of what he is will drop solidly back onto his shoulders, a tiny seed of it will remain. A small glowing mote of hope.

Like all good things, it doesn’t last for long. 

**...**

Mollymauk dies with his wings splayed open on the icy mud of the Glory Run Road. It coats the feathers, that iridescence which he had meticulously maintained preened and buffed and waxed obscured by a rime of dirt and blood. There’s something more sacrilegious about that than his eyes, still open, staring blankly up at the clouded sky. 

His limbs are already going stiff when Caleb’s paw finishes excavating the shallow grave. He, Beau and Keg have to almost wrestle with his wings to force them to fold behind his back- an awful exertion against seized-up joints and stiffening ligaments that makes Caleb sick to his stomach, another stark reminder of the chill of the body under his hands. Mollymauk should never be this cold and still. 

But they manage it in the end. His body lands with a muffled thump in the bottom of the grave, his wings crooked unnaturally behind him. Beau turns away with a huff and a sniff, supposedly to stretch out her muscles, but Caleb can see her wiping her eyes. Nott reaches up to pat her awkwardly on the elbow, one wing extending to wrap around her back, and for once, Beau leans into it. 

Caleb glances back down at Mollymauk’s body. Hesitates for a second. Then reaches down into the grave. Runs a thumb over one alula to set it back in place, the feather springing back soft and supple over the cold, hard flesh beneath. 

He had hated them being messed up.

Then Caleb stands, raises his hand, and the cat’s paw scoops the first load of earth into the grave. They have a friend to avenge. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't worry peeps this isn't abandoned, it's actually mostly finished, I'm just rattling through the cutlery drawer of my life trying to find the spoons to clean up chapters.

They hun t the Iron Shepherds down. They find the help they need living in an old graveyard, surrounded by a cursed forest. And then they find the fortress and they destroy the people who killed Mollymauk. They obliterate them. Caleb  _ burns Lorenzo into ashes.  _

Life, as it always seems to, goes on.

**...**

“Now, everyone’s got their feathers all ruffled. Why don’t we all sit down, sort them out, and talk it through?” 

Caduceus’ calming voice rumbles through the campsite, drowning out Fjord and Nott’s latest argument. 

It’s been a long few weeks. Stopping in Zadash for what was meant to be rest and relaxation had just seemed to make them all restless. But now they’re on their way to the Menagerie Coast, and despite the soothing manner of their newest group member, the earlier run-in with the giants has left everyone tired and irritable. At Caduceus’ words Fjord crumples like wet tissue paper, his long grey wings folding down sheepishly against his back. 

Nott, however, is still snarling. Her stubby wings flare again, the paler undersides flashing in belligerent threat. “Like hell am I letting him anywhere near my feathers!”

Caleb sighs, putting more wood on the fire and tuning them out. The wind coming off the Lucidian ocean might be warm, but without a fire he can’t read his books, and then he might as well be useless. Besides, he’s on first watch tonight, if any of them manage to get to sleep with all the bickering.

By the time he glances over again, Caduceus has somehow managed to cajole Nott into letting him preen her. Caleb watches out of the corner of his eye as she winces while Caduceus picks twigs from between her coverts and tries not to be jealous. 

“You know,” Caduceus says to her conversationally, “you really should preen more often. It would save you from getting into such a tangle, and it would certainly help with the waterproofing.”

On the other side of the fire, Jester perks up from her sketching. “Oh my gosh, yes! We should do group preening sessions, you guys, like a real flock! My mama and I used to do it  _ all the time _ when I was little, and then the Traveller helped me with it when I got older _ ,  _ it was so nice!”

Caduceus smiles at her, slow and serene. “Yeah, I think that could be a great idea. Hey, why not do it now?”   
  
Jester gasps. “Yes!”   
  
“You bring everyone else over, then; I’ve kinda got my hands full here,” he nods down at Nott’s feathers.   
  
Jester beams and springs to her feet. “Hey Fjord, get over here! You’ve still got blood in your feathers!”

Caleb watches in surprise as, despite Nott and Beau’s initial loud reluctance, before long Jester has the rest of them corralled in one big huddle with wings spread out over laps while Jester tells them a story about embarrassing one of her mothers’ clients. He huffs to himself. It’s unexpected- they’re not exactly the cuddliest of groups. He doesn’t think he’s ever seen Beau put up with that much physical contact before. 

A memory surfaces- a different fireside in a little cottage, quiet voices, larger fingers than his own preening his downy baby feathers for him. A quiet pang of longing lodges in his heart and he viciously shoves it down. He turns his attention back to his book. Better not to dwell on it.

Caduceus pops his head up over the rest of them and snaps him back to the present. 

“Mister Caleb, would you like to join us?”   
  
His stomach clenches. There’s an awkward pause. Jester bites her lip.

Caduceus blinks slowly, misreading the room. “There’s no shame in having no wings. Plenty of people don’t. That’s no reason for you to be excluded. If you don’t know how to preen, I would be happy to show you…”

“No, I know how.” Caleb gets up woodenly, feeling everyone else’s eyes upon him, and perches awkwardly near Caduceus. Caduceus smiles kindly at him over a shoulder, spreading one of his huge, broad wings. The feathers are pale, like the rest of him, a creamy white gently barred and speckled with grey and cinnamon. They remind him a little of Astrid’s, when they and Wulf would preen each other in the dead of night, when they were still young and foolish enough to think that Master Ikithon would not see. Only Astrid’s wings had been sharper and stiffer than Caduceus’ will ever be.

Hesitantly, he reaches forwards. His fingers brush the edge of a primary and he nearly recoils. They’re so  _ soft. _ Like an owl’s. Has he forgotten how feathers feel? How long has it been since he helped someone preen properly? Since he was part of a flock? Caleb releases the breath that he’d been holding, allowing himself to shakily pet once more over the silky feathers before getting down to work. If Caduceus notices, he doesn’t comment.

It has been a long time, but somehow his fingers remember, finding the edges of the feather tracts and lifting, brushing, pinching the lesser coverts until they lie smooth and flat. It’s instinct. It soothes something inside himself that he didn’t even realise was aching. The rest of them start to talk again, the sound relaxing him as he mechanically works his way down the wing. Secondary coverts, primary coverts, and then the flight feathers; primaries, secondaries, tertials. They’re surprisingly dirty and unkempt in the places where Caduceus can’t normally reach- but then again, Caleb remembers, he had been living alone in that temple when they’d found him, isolated much like the rest of them. What a strange flock they all make. 

Before he knows it, Caduceus is shuffling in front of him, spreading out the other wing and fluffing the feathers to give him better access. “You know mister Caleb,” he says conversationally as he sorts Beau’s ruffled tertiaries, “you’re very good at this. I’d almost think you had wings yourself.”

_ “It will be better if you don’t have them,” Trent tells him. “Nobody pays attention to the wingless. People look away, cast their eyes down, turn their backs. You will be able to walk unseen, unchallenged- you could infiltrate the Bright Queen’s court herself and nobody would give you a second glance. And best of all, without your wings to give you away, you will have no tells. Nothing to give away any deceptions that might be necessary in pursuit of justice. You will be a true asset to the Empire.” He smiles in a way that tells him he doesn’t really have a choice. “What do you say, Bren?” _

_ “Yes. I’ll do it. For the Empire.” _

Caleb blinks at the cream feathers he’s clutching too-tight in his shaking hands. He’s crushing them. Abruptly he lets go, getting jerkily to his feet. The phantom ache from where his wings were intensifies.

“Caduceus… I’m sorry, I’m…”   
  
“That’s quite alright,” Caduceus smooths himself down, peering up at him with concern. “No harm done, see? They’re just fine, you didn’t bend them. Why don’t you go and sit down by the fire?”

Caleb sits. He can hear the others moving around him, and he can hear worried muttering, but he’s not quite there with them. A warm cup of tea is pushed into his hands. He sips it mechanically. 

Slowly, he comes back to himself. Jester’s lying on her belly doodling idly in her sketchbook while Beau sits on her lower back to reach her shockingly stripy electric blue covert feathers. Fjord and Caduceus are having a discussion about the difficulties of having seafaring wings and the importance of waterproofing. Nott’s asleep on her back, mouth wide open, fangs on display and snoring loudly. Nobody’s staring at him. 

He sips his tea again. He could learn to be comfortable here.

**...**

Caleb has never been more uncomfortable in his life. 

They’ve been stuck on the boat for a week since they accidentally stole it by pirates, but it feels at least twice that long. It has been pure chaos. Apart from Fjord, none of them have been at sea, and they’ve certainly never been held hostage by pirates. Avantika and her crew looming down their necks every second of every day is an unpleasant tension. 

The others can find their own space fairly readily and get some exercise away from watching eyes- even Nott, with her stubby wings, has managed a few laps around the mast, feathers beating in a blur. Jester can go a little further, wings beating strong, her white and black and grey-pink plumage obvious against the ocean. Beau flies higher, a pointed, hawk-shaped silhouette against the sky. And Fjord, whose long, strangely-jointed wings had seemed so awkward and cumbersome for flying over land, glides over the dips and troughs of the waves endlessly with barely a need to flap, buoyed along by the ocean air.

Caleb has not been so lucky. Usually, the urge to take to the sky is alleviated by their near-constant travel, but travelling over the featureless ocean is different somehow from traversing land and the confinement is driving him slowly mad. Just seeing the others take flight fills him with a nasty jealous longing that he’d rather not think about. 

The only one who seems just as miserable as him is Caduceus. After being drenched that first chaotic night, his soft feathers have not recovered. The salt seems to stick to them, making them look thin and bedraggled, and despite his near-desperate attentions nothing has seemed to help. Caleb watches him trying to squeeze more oil from his preening glands and suppresses a sigh. 

“Do any of the others have wing conditioner? That might help.”

Caduceus rakes his fingers through the feathers again. His ears droop further as it makes no difference. “No, I asked Jester, but she’s run out.”

He’s been trying for the last three hours. It’s painful to watch. But… now he thinks about it, there might be one thing he can do. 

Caleb gets up, wincing as the blood runs back into his legs. “Stay here. I think… I think I might have something.”

He descends the stairs deeper into the ship, ignoring Caduceus’ curious gaze on his back, dodging other crew members, and finds Nott exactly where he expected her to be, packing black powder into a small barrel with her tongue stuck between her pointed teeth. 

“Nott, do you still have those vials?”

She reaches into a pocket without even looking at him and pulls one out, handing it over. As she does, the powder starts trickling out of the bottom of the barrel instead. She swears loudly, her wings flapping in frustration, and tries to plug the hole with her finger. Caleb notices that she’s already coated in the stuff- this is unlikely the first attempt.

He puts a hand on her shoulder. “Why don’t you come back to that later? It looks like it’s making you frustrated, my friend.”

Nott sighs and sets it down. “Yeah, it’s just not working. It’s looser than the last stuff- won’t stay in the barrel- smells different, too. Kinda… peppery? Hey, would you help me with it later?”

“Of course. I just have to… go do something first.”

She grins at him and he reaches down to ruffle her hair, watching as she goes scampering up the ladder onto deck, little half-flaps of her wings pushing her up. Caleb knows her- she’ll be gone flying for a good hour, and the others are already out, which means that there’ll be nobody around to see him. Good.

He shuts himself in their quarters and sits down on the cot, inspecting the small glass vial with trepidation. He doesn’t want to do this- doesn’t even want to think about it, really- but he knows the misery that is being earth-bound and he wouldn’t wish it on his worst enemy, never mind gentle, home-sick Caduceus. Caleb knows the longing for the air under your feathers, the quivering anxiety in your stomach, the burning need to be off the ground.

_ “It will scar, of course,” Ikathon says, the knife in his hand. It's a huge thing, a thick blade like a cleaver, pointed at the end to lever bones out of their sockets. Just looking at it makes his stomach try to escape through his mouth. Behind him, a cleric stands ready, expression blank and unfeeling next to Master Ikathon’s clinical interest. “But it will be worth it.” _

Shaking the thoughts out of his head, he reaches around to just under his shoulder blade, below where his wings had been. A few scruffy feathers still cling on between the scar tissue and he plucks them out as he goes, each of them a little sting of pain that he ignores. He gropes around for a minute before finding what he’s been looking for- a raised lump, solid under his fingertips. 

It’s been so long since he’d done this, he isn’t entirely sure if his preening glands will even work any more. But after a few minutes of prodding gingerly at it, he feels something release, and when he draws back his hand his fingers are covered in thin oil. With a grimace, he wipes as much as he can into the glass vial. 

He keeps at it until the oil runs dry, which isn’t long. It’s only half a vial, but it’ll be worth it if it helps Caduceus, he thinks to himself as he pulls his shirt back over his reddened and irritated back.

He wobbles his way back up onto deck. Caduceus is still there, morosely patting at one wing.

“Caduceus? I have something for you.”

Caduceus looks up. Caleb holds out the vial and hopes his fingers aren’t still trembling.

Caduceus’ face lights up. “Oh, thank Melora!” He reaches out for it, inspecting the clear amber liquid. “Where did you get this?”

“I, ah, found it in the hold,” Caleb lies, aware of the stinging itch of his back. “It’s amazing what people lose down there.”

“Well, thank you for finding it for me.” Caduceus looks at him carefully. Caleb shuffles, uncomfortable, but thankfully Nott chooses that moment to pitch herself out of the crow’s nest with an excited scream, and that marks the end of that conversation. 

**...**

The next few days offer no respite. They arrive in Darktow, and leave again less than twenty four hours later, the image of Avantika’s wings dropping limp in the Plank King’s grasp seared into their retinas. They find a stowaway and a strange ball which sucks them in and they have to fight a dragon- a  _ dragon-  _ which they only just manage to escape.

They dive beneath the waves to search out Dashilla’s lair and another temple to the serpent. For once, having no wings is almost a benefit- he’s a faster swimmer than the others, who flail clumsily through the water, usually streamlined feathers dragging them down. Everyone but Fjord, whose waterproof wings glimmer with the sheen of trapped air as he beats them in short, tight strokes to propel himself forward like a diving bird as they explore the flooded ruins. 

But before long, even Fjord seems to become wary of fitting any more keys into the locks that are restraining Uk’atoa. Caleb is glad- he knows the allure of curiosity, but unleashing a demi-god created by one of the Betrayers seems a little too risky, even to him. 

So they turn back towards dry land, and the empire, and the looming threat of war.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're wondering about some vague references I'm using for general wing size/colouration;
> 
> Nott- house wren  
> Jester- European jay  
> Fjord- shearwater  
> Beau- kestrel  
> Caduceus- barn owl


End file.
